Gardenhire: Scouts getting book on the 'new' Colabello

Minnesota first baseman Chris Colabello walks back to the dugout after striking out against Oakland relief pitcher Ryan Cook for the final out of the game in Monday's Home Opener at Target Field in Minneapolis, April 7, 2014. The Twins lost 8-3. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

Slumping Chris Colabello was left out of the starting lineup for the day game of Thursday's doubleheader.

Since homering and driving in the game-winning runs at Tampa Bay on his mother's birthday April 23, Colabello had gone 1 for 17 (.059) with four strikeouts over his past four games.

Add in his post-homer work on April 23, and Colabello had fallen into a 2-for-21 (.095) skid with a pair of singles.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire noted Colabello chased too many pitches outside the strike zone while going 0 for 7 with two strikeouts the past two games. Colabello failed to get the ball out of the infield but did walk twice in those games against Detroit and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

"Advance scouts are in the stands, looking," Gardenhire said. "They really didn't have a plan (before) because he was killing everything early in the season. Once you see him make a few outs, they're going to see that. That's when he has to adjust a little bit."

Gardenhire keeps a thick binder filled with Inside Edge scouting information with him at all times. He suggested there is now a book on Colabello that has only been recently updated to reflect the swing changes he made this offseason.

"You get a lot of old information from last year," Gardenhire said. "Once you get one month into it, now you start using the new information from this year. It all starts coming together and you can forget about 2013. If he has a rough series, you can bet there's going to be teams that come in and try to do the same thing that team did.

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Colabello still entered Thursday's play with 27 RBIs, second in the American League. He hit .295 in the season's opening month with a .343 on-base percentage and a .484 slugging percentage.

"He's doing fine," Gardenhire said. "He's going to be just fine. (Colabello) is a different hitter than he was last year. I still believe that."

Briefly

Twins left fielder Josh Willingham said he wouldn't test his injured left wrist in the batting cage on Thursday. He might give it another go on Friday or Saturday after having to cut short Tuesday's session because of lingering pain. "When it feels good, I'll hit," he said. "Right now it doesn't feel right." ... Gardenhire was driving home with his wife, Carol, when the Wild scored the game-winning goal in overtime to win their first-round playoff series Wednesday night. They were listening to the radio broadcast in their truck. "As we got close to St. Paul, they finally scored," Gardenhire said. "I swerved a little bit and high-fived my wife. It was a pretty good moment."